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Neighborhood Report

She wanted to save one bridge; she might save six

Thanks to a Riverside Heights resident, the structures could become historic landmarks.

By MICHAEL CANNING
Published August 4, 2006

Sharon Keene wanted to save one bridge, but she might have ended up protecting six.

When a Hillsborough County engineer showed up at a neighborhood meeting a couple of years ago, Keene and others were surprised to hear that the aging Columbus Drive bridge might be torn down and replaced.

"That sounded pretty drastic," said Keene, who's lived nearby in Riverside Heights for 42 years. "I was surprised at how emotionally people responded in this community. They were very upset."

Keene drummed up community support and asked the city if the 1927 bridge could become a historic landmark.

Yes, replied the city's Historic Preservation Commission. It and five other bridges.

Now the commission has completed a study that recommends the bridges spanning the Hillsborough River at Platt, Cass and Laurel streets, Kennedy Boulevard, Hillsborough Avenue and Columbus Drive be designated local historic landmarks.

The Tampa City Council is scheduled to take up the issue Aug. 17 and 31. "There seems to be a lot of support for it at this time," said Dennis Fernandez, the city's historic preservation manager.

The six bridges meet the National Park Service's historic criteria, Fernandez said. They are more than 50 years old, they have some architectural significance, they have contributed to the city's patterns of development and they are connected to a historically significant person.

The current incarnation of the Kennedy Boulevard bridge was completed in 1913, followed by the Platt Street and Cass Street bridges in 1926, the Laurel Street and Columbus Drive bridges in 1927, and the Hillsborough Avenue bridge - officially the T.N. Henderson Bridge - in 1939.

All the bridges created vital links between burgeoning development on the east and west sides of the Hillsborough River, especially before and during the 1920s land boom.

Historic landmark designation won't preclude improvements to the bridges, Fernandez said. "It just means that those changes are looked at in a way so that the historic characteristics are not impacted."

For example, the bridges' aesthetic hallmarks - the approaches, railings and tender houses - would be protected, but the internal mechanisms could be updated as needed, Fernandez said.

Keene, who moved to Tampa when she was 15, has fond memories of the Columbus Drive bridge. Anglers and cast netters used the bridge to pull mullet from the river, which ended up in neighborhood smokers and fish fries.

In those days the bridge had a full-time bridge tender. "A lot of people knew him by name," Keene recalled. "He was kind of a fixture in the neighborhood. He used to keep watch in the community."

And now Keene has kept watch for the bridge. "As a community, we'll take an immense satisfaction" if the bridge gets its historic designation, she said. "It's a gateway to our community, and it's a gateway to neighboring communities."

[Last modified August 3, 2006, 11:11:03]